Special Projects Division

BLE Nano: BLE Central Role Example – YN360 Arduino Code

I initially had an idea of writing a bridge from DMX to talk to the YN360 wand-light, but for a few reasons I found that this would not work well, primarily due to the high latency in the connection.

Instead, I’m publishing my code for talking to the YN360 using the BLE Nano from RedBear labs, which is based on the Nordic nRF51822. I spent quite a few nights wrestling with the code, partially due to my rusty C skills, but I got there in the end.

My experience working with the RedBear was mostly positive. It was quite a struggle to talk to the device using a Mac, I had to resort to terminal commands and AppleScript hack applications, which is really disappointing considering the easy of use that the mbed platform is trying to offer – its not at the stage where I can really recommend it for novices yet, which is a real shame as it is so so close!

More frustratingly, while there are a few examples provided in the library of how to program the BLE Nano in peripheral role mode, there is very little provided about how to use central role mode.

I do need to acknowledge that the support staff on the RedBear forum were helpful, but I think that as english was not their first language, communication was a little more difficult than it could have been.

The code at my github links below will search your local area for a BLE YN360, and then will connect to it, and cycle through a few different modes.